Most original way to destroy a car in a chase

[JF Massicotte]

Chasing yesterday in Ontario we had quite a surprise:

A deer came out running and hit the car. The car didn't hit the deer, the deer really hit us on the side. Car has heavy damage from one bumper to another: a mess.


The most important is that everybody's okay.

If we add to this the fact that my partner managed to hurt himself while taping, this is a chase we'll need to forget.

 

[Chris Hayes]

That reminds me of the post from last year where someone posted a website with a picture of a deer that went through the front window and exploded. We've been lucky in our chasing that the only animal we hit was 2 pigs that were in the middle of the road at 11pm on May 4, 2003.

 

[Bob Schafer]

May 10, 2003, we were driving back to Norman from near Ft Smith. A raccoon, which I swear had to weigh 80 lbs., committed suicide under my car on I-40. This destroyed my car's front fascia.

Funniest part was this: The next day, I duct-taped the front fascia of the car up to keep it from scraping on the 580 mile drive back to NM. Well, that lasted about as far as OKC, but I just kept driving the the rest of the way home with the fascia dragging on the ground. We were home for about 12 hours, and headed back toward OK the next morning. Before leaving, though, I backed the car up in the garage about 2 feet to give me room to get underneath and remove the the fascia.

After clinging to the front of the car for 580 miles while dragging on the ground, when I backed up those 2 feet it fell off, clean as a whistle.

Problem solved!

 

[Jason McKittrick]

While traveling to Amarillo on April 20th for the April 21st chase, Bambi came very close to ending my chase near Arnett Oklahoma. I had to swerve while going 75 mph. Luckily I was able to maintain control of my vehicle and once my heart started beating again I was able to continue on to Amarillo. This reaffirmed the point that the most dangerous part of chasing is the actual driving. Not the weather phenomena that most non chasers are afraid of.

 

[David Mikulec]

chase car vs. deer

We both lost in this case. Doe jumped the hood, impacted at the roofline and was cut in two. Inards all over the place. Not a pleasant site - and the aroma (in June) ... whew!

Damn sturdy car, probably saved my life. She was fully insured and those old Towncars have a high resale value so I wound up actually getting more from the insurance company than I paid for her.

It's shame though, the Towncar made for a nice comfortable chase vehicle too. Plenty of room for radios, computers and such. The sound system was by Bose (factory sub in the trunk) and sounded sweet when not chasing. Oh well.


I've posted a photo, for educational purposes. We of course all need to stay alert out there, and be aware of our surroundings (as well as knowing the limitatons and structural soundness of the vehicle you're in).

 

[B. Kotcher]

While chasing in Oklahoma about four years ago, a steel tool compartment filled with tools on an oncoming big-rig detached, and the big-rig's rear tires shot it out directly into my oncoming car. It blew my air bags and blew the hood back onto the windshield so that I couldn't see--and I was still going about 60 mph. I leaned over and could see the road through a gap under the hood near the centerline of the car, and I guided the car off onto the shoulder. I was videotaping at the time, so the entire thing was caught on video tape (I'll have to post it one of these days).

--Bob

 

[David Drummond]

While chasing in Oklahoma about four years ago, a steel tool compartment filled with tools on an oncoming big-rig detached, and the big-rig's rear tires shot it out directly into my oncoming car. It blew my air bags and blew the hood back onto the windshield so that I couldn't see--and I was still going about 60 mph. I leaned over and could see the road through a gap under the hood near the centerline of the car, and I guided the car off onto the shoulder. I was videotaping at the time, so the entire thing was caught on video tape (I'll have to post it one of these days).

--Bob

You should post that. I remember seeing that at the chaser convention!

 

[Grant Gutierrez]

On May 4th we had a pheasant (sp?) try to commit suicide by running into the side of our Ford Taurus. The car only has a small dent and the bird wabbled away phased and injured, but alive.

 

[cdcollura]

Good day,

Had deer issues back in 2004 in Colorado as well ... The deer ran into Amos Magliocco's 4-Runner as he was caravaning with us.

Damage was roughly $5,000 dollars. Amos said "Told you this is not my year" and Steve Hodanish just said "Aaah, el sucko - That stinks"!

 

[Bill Tabor]

Yeah back in 2000 or so I went up to Kansas in my Rodeo for a High risk that ended up busting during the day. At twilight I was driving along down a dirt farmroad looking at the sky, etc going about 50mph. Suddenly a big deer came out and it was all like in slow motion. I smashed the thing between center and in front of driver and whacked him but good. I immediately shut off the engine and coasted to a stop. It was a mess everywhere and most of my front end was destroyed. The bumpers, etc were dragging into the tires some. There was blood and hair everywhere.

Storms were starting to fire and lighting was raining down in the distance getting closer. Turns out I was in a lowered river valley and there was a chance of flooding from upstream storms. It was now dark, and radiator was wrecked, but I would start the vehicle enough to get up some speed, coast and then shut it off. I eventually got to a town a few miles away, got cell service and called a tow truck. I sat in the town as the storms were in progress around me and rain was coming down hard.

I holed up in a motel in one of the bigger nearby towns (was it Wellington?) and seems I was there for at least 5 days as they waited on parts for my foreign Isuzu. They finally got it drivable and I made it back to Austin.

No fun to hit a deer and have it destroy your vehicle. Down here in the Texas Hill Country I have to think about that a lot. I didn't realize there were deer up there in that part of Kansas in open fields. It's a good thing it was a truck though. That keep you and the cab higher and helps prevent the deer from coming inside the cab compartment. I've heard horror stories of even DPS officers that were gored to death in their small sedans when I deer came in the cab still partly alive.